Fruitcake Wallaby
by RockoTehWallaby
Summary: Rocko discovers the hard way a chilling secret about an O-Town holiday tradition. Oneshot. Dark Fic.


Disclamer: Ok, so this is not the first fanfiction I've ever written. It is, however, the first I've ever published. I think Rocko's Modern Life is a _very _underrated show, that deserves a LOT more attention than it gets nowadays. Anyhow, I decided to publish this Rocko dark fic I wrote. Remember Fruitcake Man from the Christmas Episode? I decided to go into more detail about that. If you have any criticism, please let it be CONSTRUCTIVE. Thank you.

Rocko's Modern Life belongs to Joe Murray, not me.

It was an ongoing tradition at the O-Town Mall on Christmas Eve. Instead of the usual mall Santa, they had a Fruitcake Man. The Fruitcake Man was exactly what it says on the tin, a man made out of fruitcake. He would sit in a fancy chair, and the children would line up and each take a bite out of him, until there was nothing left but a few crumbs on the chair cushions. A new Fruitcake Man would appear next year, forced to suffer the same fate as the previous.

No one knew exactly how or when this bizarre and morbid tradition started; the O-Town citizens just saw it as a normal thing. There were dozens of unanswered questions going on with this Fruitcake Man as well. Why did he appear to be a living, breathing being, who felt pain whenever the children bit into him? And where did each Fruitcake Man come from, exactly?

"Hey, Rocko!" Heffer shouted. The steer stepped through the open doorway and looked around for his friend. "Rocko, I'm here! I wanna show you something!"

"Coming, Heff!" came a high-pitched voice with an Australian accent from the top of the stairs. A short, beige-furred wallaby trotted down the stairs and over to his overweight friend. "What is it you want to show me?" Rocko asked him.

The yellow bovine reached into his pocket and pulled out a clear, plastic bag with what looked like a chunk of purple fruitcake inside.

"Remember when I got to see the Fruitcake Man last year on Christmas Eve? Well, I've been saving this piece all the way up to here in November! But I don't feel like eating it anymore. You want some?"

Rocko stared at the fruit-filled pastry inside the bag. "No thanks, Heff. I don't eat fruitcake. But maybe Spunky wants it?"

A small white dog with black blotches lay asleep on the couch, but as soon as he heard his owner mention his name, the dog opened his eyes, and then leapt off the couch, yapping excitedly.

Rocko smiled and took the bag from Heffer. "You want some fruitcake, Spunky? You want it? Huh? Do you?" Spunky leapt up and down, still letting out his high-pitched yap. Rocko unwrapped the bag, grabbed the fruitcake, and dropped it onto the floor in front of Spunky. He watched as his dog snatched up the cake in his furry jaws, chewed it up, and swallowed it whole.

After Heffer had left, Rocko was sitting on his couch, watching _Meet the Fatheads_. All of a sudden, he heard the phone ring. Rocko picked it up and held it to his left ear. "Hello?" he asked.

"Hi, Rocko," said a nasal-sounding voice on the other end. It was Rocko's other friend, Filburt. Filburt was a neurotic, hypochondriac turtle who wore glasses. He was married to Dr. Paula Hutchison, a cat with a hook on her right hand, and they had four kids, named Gilbert, Shellbert, Missy, and Norbert.

"Filburt? Hey, what's up?" Rocko answered.

"Well," the turtle continued. "Shellbert needs new shoes. I'm sick right now, and Paula is over at the hospital, removing someone's appendix, so I was wondering if you would go over to the mall to get them for me."

"That's be great, Fil!" the wallaby replied. "I'll go over there right now!" Rocko hung up the phone, beaming at the thought of him doing a favor for a friend, totally unaware that that was the last time he would ever speak to Filburt again.

Rocko entered the O-Town Mall carrying a shopping bag. As he walked down the hallway past hundreds of customers, he turned his head to the side and recognized the spot where they would set up the Fruitcake Man Meet-and-Eat next month. Right now, it was currently a soda stand, but Rocko couldn't help but feel chills when he stared at it, wondering which Fruitcake Man would suffer the fate that many had suffered years and years before him.

The marsupial shook it off quickly, however, and continued to stroll over to his destination: the shoe store. He remembered that one Christmas eve, when his elf neighbor was being tormented by the alligator shoe salesmen, and Rocko had saved him. He stopped right in front of the doorway, wondering if those alligators remembered him, and if they wanted revenge.

Rocko peeked in, and noticed that there were no alligators. He only saw a vulture lady wearing a purple dress, sitting behind the counter and playing a game on her cell phone. He stepped inside and walked over to the counter.

"Hi there, ma'am. Um, I was wondering…do you have any size-4 toddler shoes?" The vulture lady turned her bald head and looked down at the small wallaby through thick-rimmed glasses.

"We'll check and see," she said in a Boston accent. "I'll get Chuck to escort you." She grabbed a walkie-talkie and called into it.

"Chuck! We got ourselves an Australian!"

"Comin'!" shouted a thick, gravelly voice from the other end. The vulture lady, whose nametag read "Susan", put the walkie-talkie back down onto the counter.

"Chuck's comin'. He should be here soon."

Rocko suddenly felt the ground begin to shake. He turned his head to the left of the shoe store and noticed a doorway with stairs leading down below. An enormous shadow was crawling up those stairs, and, in less than two minutes, a huge, indigo-furred gorilla wearing a blue sweater had emerged from the aforementioned doorway. The gorilla, who was almost twice the size of Rocko's friend Heffer, peered down at Rocko and smiled. "So you're Australian, huh?" said Chuck.

Rocko began to shake and sweat uncomfortably. "Um…uh…heh heh…well…"

"Here, lemme have a look at you." Chuck reached down and picked up Rocko with one hairy hand. With the other hand, he began to tug at Rocko's ears, then his tail, and finally his snout. Rocko, of course, did not find this pleasant at all.

"Stop! Put me down! What are you doing?!"

Chuck set Rocko down and patted him on the head. "You're in fine shape, little guy."

_What's going on? _Rocko thought. _I came here to buy some shoes for a friend! _

As if reading his mind, Chuck reached down, grabbed Rocko's arm, and dragged him across the carpet and over to the toddler's section.

"I've got a perfect shoe for ya', pal," the gorilla said softly. "Here, how about this one?" He lifted up a turquoise-colored toddler-size shoe with navy blue stars.

"Take a peek. It's a very nice shoe, you know. We have this one in all sizes, and we try to only bring it out on special occasions."

Rocko looked inside the shoe. It didn't look like there was anything special about that shoe; not even on the inside.

At that moment, Chuck pressed a hidden button below the shoe with his index finger, causing a green gas to spray out. Rocko coughed and gagged at the noxious fumes, and felt himself spinning around in a circle, before collapsing onto the ground in a furry heap. Chuck grinning in his face and showing rotten, yellow teeth was the last thing Rocko remembered seeing before everything turned black.

"Ugh...where…wha…?"

As Rocko opened his eyes, he found himself lying on his belly on a wooden table underneath a bright light. He wanted to sit up and look around, but he felt too weak to do so. Everything looked blurry.

The wallaby felt a blast of hot breath hit his elongated face. Moving his eyes upwards, he made out the faint outline of Chuck the gorilla standing over him, grinning evilly.

"You're gonna be our next Fruitcake Man, Kangaroo Boy." Chuck's rough voice hit Rocko's ears like a missile. "Come on. It'll be fun. Entertaining the lovely children…you like kids, don't you?"

Rocko felt himself being gently lifted up off the table in two hairy arms, and carried over to the other side of the room. As his vision cleared up, Rocko could make out a large glass box sitting there, about the size of a washing machine, with all sorts of tubes stuck into the sides, and an enormous funnel sticking out of the top.

"This'll be really fun…just you wait…" Chuck opened a door in the front of the glass machine and placed Rocko inside on his back. Almost immediately, Rocko felt the strength to lift his head coming back, but he still wasn't able to stand.

"Chuck?" he mumbled, lifting his head up and blinking. "What's going on? Why is…?"

"Just you calm down, Kangaroo Boy." Rocko could hear Chuck from outside of the glass, but he wasn't sure if Chuck could hear him. Rocko noticed Chuck walking over to a covered table and lifting off the cover, revealing a familiar-looking object.

A fruitcake.

A purple fruitcake with fruits and nuts all over the inside and outside, sitting on a fancy, porcelain plate.

Chuck lifted up the fruitcake with two hands, carried it over to the machine that Rocko was sitting in, and dumped it into the funnel in the top. Rocko felt the soft, squishy holiday treat land on his chest and sit there, with Rocko being too weak to do anything.

"Almost done." Rocko continued to hear Chuck's mocking voice calling out to him. The wallaby turned his head and saw Chuck standing by a lever in the wall.

"Just gotta flip this switch…" Chuck used one hairy arm to grab hold of the lever and lift it up.

A bright, white light filled the machine, and Rocko screeched in pain. It felt like every single inch of his fur-covered body was on fire! He moaned and struggled to move his limbs, but to no avail. The more he tried to fight, the more intense the burning got.

Soon, the feeling changed from burning to stabbing, as if a thousand needles were being shoved into his skin at once. It hurt so much, Rocko felt tears filling his eyes and running down his furry face.

Rocko suddenly felt his flesh turn into ice, and he immediately felt cold instead of hot. The poor little marsupial felt his lungs began to compress. He tried to call for help, but all that came out was a simple squeak.

Rocko then felt the burning start up again, except worse. It felt ten times as scalding as French fry grease. He felt it on his eyes, groin, tongue, and even inside his throat. Rocko wanted to cry, but he couldn't make a single peep due to the tightness of his throat.

After what felt like five hours of indescribable agony, the light inside the machine went out, and Rocko found himself shaking, whimpering, and curled into a fetal position, unable to move. The pain…it was all over. But he felt different. Instead of fur on his body, he felt crumbs and fruit. As soon as the muscles in his body got their movement back, he lifted up one arm and held it in front of his face.

He bit his tongue and struggled not to scream. Instead of beige fur, he saw purple crumbs covered with cranberries, raisins, and hazelnuts. The fruitcake had fused with the molecules in his DNA. He was no longer a wallaby. He was now a mutant fruitcake/wallaby hybrid.

He heard the door to the machine opening, saw two hairy, indigo arms reaching in, and felt those arms grabbing him by the sides, pulling him out of the machine, and gently patting him on the head. Chuck's raspy voice came back to his ears (now made of fruitcake).

"Have fun as our next Fruitcake Man next month…"

_Christmas Eve_

"Hey kids! It's me, Fruitcake Man! Come on over!"

A sentient fruitcake in the shape of a wallaby sat in a fancy, throne-like chair with red cushions, wearing nothing but a fur cape around his neck. A line of children were standing in front of the chair. Next to the chair was a bucket where the children's parents would pay the money.

The first in line was a penguin kid wearing a red baseball cap. The penguin kid leapt up on top of Rocko's lap. Rocko tried to smile, despite knowing what would happen soon.

"So…um…do you want a gift?"

The fruitcake-wallaby got his answer quicker than he planned to. The little penguin closed his beak on Rocko's right arm, and tugged on it. Rocko opened his mouth and let out a painful-sounding scream; it felt like every single tendon in his pastry arm was being forcefully yanked out. The penguin tugged harder and harder, until, with a sharp snapping sound, the entire limb was severed.

Rocko clutched the stump where his right arm used to be, and felt tears welling up in his eyes. Despite there not being any blood, it still managed to be excruciating. As the penguin tilted his head back and swallowed the severed arm, Rocko peeked behind the kid and noticed the huge line of what appeared to be twenty-six more kids to go. He wished he could escape, but Chuck had threatened to chop him up into pieces and feed him to the pigeons if he dared.

After half an hour of this agonizing experience, all that was left of Rocko was a disembodied earless fruitcake head sitting on the red cushion on the chair, sobbing and moaning in hysteric pain and sitting in a puddle of tears. Since he was no longer attached to the rest of his body, he would never be able to walk or hold things ever again. Finally, the last person in line, whom Rocko instantly recognized, walked up to the chair.

"Heffer!" Rocko's head screamed. "Please don't!"

The fat yellow steer smiled a big dopey grin. "How do you know my name, Fruitcake Man?"

"Heffer, it's me!"

"Of course it's you, Fruitcake Man! But you sound an awful lot like a friend of mine who went missing last month..."

"Heffer, I'M your friend!"

"Of course you're my friend, Fruitcake Man! You're everybody's friend! But I'm not talking about you; I'm talking about my other friend, Rocko the Wallaby! Now, no more talking! Let me get some nice, tasty fruitcake!"

Rocko's head felt both of Heffer's big, sweaty hands grabbing him from the sides and lifting him up off of his comfy seat. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth as Heffer's open jaws, slimy tongue, and smelly breath came at his face…

END


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